May 10-14

This week we discovered a math website: Dreambox.com. A blog I follow reviewed Dreambox and based on her experience I signed Unicorn up for the free trial. Since she started on May 7th, Unicorn has played for 7 hours and completed 24 lessons! Big bonus: She is LOVING it! This is a bonus because Unicorn HATES math. I don't have to ask her to play Dreambox...she "bugs" me to use the computer to play it!

Since we are near the end of our school year, we are transitioning to only the basics: Math, Reading and Religion. We will continue with this modified schedule until July, when Daddy goes back to work.

Unicorn working on math.

Unicorn using "Upwords" for spelling.

For Ladybug, I purchased a preschool curriculum: Mother Goose Time. This is mostly for my sanity. Ladybug LOVES doing projects and the preschool curriculums are full of fun projects as well as fun ways to learn letters, numbers, shapes, colors, etc. I was having trouble creating lessons for both children and decided that a "boxed" curriculum for preschool will work for Ladybug and Monkey. I researched many of these curriculums and for preschool the are all pretty similar...the biggest difference is the amount of materials you get for your money! Mother Goose Time, in my opinion, gives the most bang for your buck! Additionally, I will use this curriculum when I start up my preschool again. It is laid out very well and I can "tweak" whatever I need/want to "tweak"! I ordered the May, June and July curriculums and so far she is loving it! She asks to do school again! May's Theme is "Food, Fitness and Fun" and one of the first things we did is learn about fruits and vegetables and then "paint" with different fruits and vegetables! We used lemons, strawberries, carrots, celery and onions. It was so fun even Unicorn joined in!

Ladybug painting with a lemon,

a strawberry and

celery!

Unicorn painted with fruit and veggies too!

Ladybug's finished product.

Unicorn's finished product!

As a family we read the 5th Magic Tree House book: "Night of the Ninjas"!

I have always struggled with how to store/save all the papers that the children create. While reading another blog, I stumbled upon a cute way to store all the paperwork. Each crate has 14 file folders labeled from Preschool through 12th grade. Each day the children add their work to the appropriate folder and then each month we will go through their creations and decide which ones to keep, throw away or send to family. That way, at the end of each school year, the children will have saved their best work. Some of it will end up in scrapbooks, some of it on grandparents refrigerators and most of it recycled in various other ways.